Next to Nothing
by The Dejected Stepsisters
Summary: In a world where Naruto defeated Sasuke and brought him back to the village, everything was supposed to get better. Nothing has. Three years later, certain truths come to light may be their saving grace but could just as easily destroy them.
1. Living for

Next to Nothing

_Chapter One: _Living for...

"Naruto-kun!"

The cry was Lee's usual, forceful voice, and it jarred all other thoughts out of Naruto's head as he straightened to turn toward the sound, jacket halfway on and pants not quite zipped. He was still getting dressed as he had only just finished falling out of bed and getting a pot of water on the stove for instant ramen, but in his defense it was only... what, eleven? It wasn't even noon yet!

Pulling his pants the rest of the way up, Naruto shuffled over to the window and leaned out.

"Lee? What's going on?"

"I apologize to be bringing you ill tidings yet again, but I passed Neji on the way to our team meeting and he reported seeing Sasuke collapsed outside the village again! I would be glad to help you retrieve him, but I am late for..." Lee shouted up, brow furrowed seriously. That was one of the great things about Lee, funny as his looks were. It was easy to read his expression even from a distance.

"_Again_?" Naruto sighed as he glanced at the clock. Usually Sasuke let him at least eat _breakfast_ before--

"Ah, well. Must be Thursday again," Naruto went on to grumble, shrugging his jacket the rest of the way on. "Thanks anyway, Lee! Don't worry about us, just get going before Gai-sensei makes you do laps on your hands."

Hearing that, Lee saluted with a smile and then was gone fast enough to break the sound barrier.

Sighing, Naruto ran his hand through his hair and turned off his stove, patted his stomach apologetically, and then tied on his headband before heading straight out. Sasuke got extra-grumpy when Naruto left him there to learn his lesson for a few hours, so it was best just to get this over with.

Sasuke decided that it was, indeed, Thursday as he woke to the rather haphazard swaying he'd come to associate with being carried by Naruto. The only thing missing was the distinctive smell of ramen - Sasuke felt no remorse at having apparently interrupted Naruto's breakfast.

This was entirely the moron's fault, after all. If Naruto hadn't dragged him back to Konoha against his will, he wouldn't have to make repeated escape attempts, that damn bracelet wouldn't keep draining his chakra and knocking him out right outside Konoha's walls, and Naruto wouldn't have to keep carrying him back.

Sasuke had no pity.

His first order of business as his chakra slowly returned to him (a result of being back within Konoha's walls) and his grogginess began to fade was to shove roughly at Naruto's chest. His second was to mutter, "Put me down, idiot," and to level Naruto with a rather sleepy glare. It was more cute and less fierce than he would have liked, but since he didn't happen to be in possession of a mirror, he was blissfully unaware of this fact.

The sidelong view of Sasuke's expression almost made all the trouble worth it for Naruto. Almost, but not quite. After, oh, two or three years of this, the novelty of the sleepy and almost sweetly disgruntled look had rather worn off, and today Sasuke had gotten an early enough start that Naruto counted himself as lucky for having had time to get dressed.

"Not a chance. You're coming back to my apartment with me, and then you're going to watch me cook and eat even if I have to tie you to the chair," Naruto quipped back, cheerfully giving Sasuke a jostle hard enough to knock the air out of his lungs. "I'll have you know my knots have gotten much better since we were Genin. And after that we're going to have a nice, long talk about this. Of course, you can say no and try to run off but then I'll just call Kakashi-sensei and Sakura-chan and tell them we need to host another intervention. Which sounds better to you?"

Sasuke remembered the last 'intervention.' Being hogtied in the middle of a circle of people, most of whom he didn't even like, all crowded into one room and refusing to let him leave Kakashi's apartment. Sakura's annoyingly comforting expression as she told him that it was unhealthy for him to keep knocking himself out with escape attempts. Naruto loudly informing him that he was sick of dragging Sasuke's 'fat ass' back to the village. Hinata quietly trying to remind Naruto that they were supposed to remain non-confrontational. Shikamaru a bit too seriously pointing out that they could always just cut off Sasuke's legs and fix the problem entirely.

No, thank you.

"I want breakfast," Sasuke said. If he had to pick one of the two, then his choice was going to be an order, not a decision made after being backed into a corner. "Not ramen."

"Fine. You can have some crackers, then," Naruto answered flatly, as ramen was pretty much the extent of his culinary prowess. He shifted Sasuke's weight as he spoke so that it was more evenly distributed in his arms, and then inwardly swore to God that next time this happened, he was slinging Sasuke over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

They made it back to Naruto's apartment still engaged in the traditional argument over whether or not Sasuke was capable of walking there himself; he hadn't been, he never was, but regularly being spotted unconscious on the ground just outside Konoha was bad enough. Being carried back bridal-style by Naruto of all people only added insult to injury.

Sasuke sat slumped in a chair at Naruto's rather rickety kitchen table, his legs still feeling as unsteady as the old piece of furniture looked. "I hate you," he muttered more sullenly than was common for him, already out of better insults.

"Yeah, yeah, I know," Naruto dismissed as he started the water boiling again, grumbling quietly to himself and doing a fair impression of Sasuke's sullen expression as he went through the contents of his cupboard. He didn't know why he tried so hard when Sasuke didn't appreciate any of it. He wasn't even sure why he cared so much, only that he didn't know how to stop. Sasuke had become an irremovable, irreplaceable part of him long before this whole mess started, back before Naruto could even properly remember.

Silence settled over the room as Naruto busied himself with cooking while Sasuke recuperated from having his chakra drained. It didn't take Naruto very long to finish making breakfast, at any rate, as most of what he prepared had the word 'instant' somewhere on the packaging.

When he was done, a plate was shoved in front of Sasuke, Naruto not quite meeting his eyes as the blond retreated quickly. It was a plate of slightly sloppily-made instant curry, accompanied by heated, pre-packaged rice.

"Don't complain if it tastes bad, okay?" he asserted loudly, injecting his usual energy into his voice as he brought his cup of instant ramen over to the table, sat down, and dug in. All without quite managing to look at Sasuke even once.

Sasuke's only response was a dark glare that Naruto probably didn't manage to catch, anyway. The blond was in one of those indefinable moods that made Sasuke more uncomfortable than he was, well, comfortable with. He could take annoying Naruto, he could take emotional Naruto, he could even sort of take I'm-quite-possibly-getting-stronger-than-you Naruto when he had to. But he couldn't take this Naruto.

Naruto jumped into everything he did with no reservations. No one made him uncomfortable, no one intimidated him enough to make him avoid eye contact. What was worse was that Sasuke knew he _wasn't_ intimidating Naruto. Intimidating Naruto would have been rather nice, actually, especially after having just taken a forced ride in his arms. But this was something else, something that made Sasuke unsettled, made his stomach churn with guilt and other things that he couldn't quite put a name to.

He didn't have time to feel guilty. He had a mission, a purpose, and this was just one more way in which Naruto had managed to get in the way of that.

"It's horrible," he said bluntly as he ate, if for no other reason than to break the uncomfortable silence that had settled between them.

"Then try to escape _after_ breakfast next time," Naruto sniped back a little tiredly. It was all he could manage. He barely knew what to say to Sasuke anymore, after all this time had passed. Back then, back during the fight at the Valley of the End, Naruto had been so certain that as long as he won and as long as he brought Sasuke back to the village, everything would be okay. It had been so much easier then. There was a hurdle he could overcome. A clear goal. Something he could achieve and then his life could go back to being everything it had been before. With Sakura-chan and Kakashi-sensei and exams and missions and promotions and someday, becoming Hokage and showing the world what he was made of.

Nothing had happened the way it was supposed to.

After he'd brought Sasuke back to the village, nothing had gone back to normal. It had only gotten worse. There had been weeks spiraling into months of meetings with the council of elders and Tsunade. Fighting with them day after day for Sasuke's freedom. Civilian status wasn't _good_ enough. Stripping Sasuke of everything he had spent his whole life working for and forcing him to live a life he wasn't even interested in was stupid, even in Naruto's eyes. So he'd fought them, and Sakura had fought them, and Kakashi had backed the two of them. After a few months, they'd managed to get the sentence worked down to a simple chakra ward that would prevent Sasuke from leaving the village again.

But once the fight against the elders had ended, the fight against Sasuke had begun. Sasuke had fought Naruto every step of the way, trying to escape week after week for that extra few feet he managed to get. Then there was all that hate, all the bickering and arguing and--

No one really smiled anymore, and no matter how much Naruto tried to smile to make up for it, things didn't feel any less _wrong_.

By now, Naruto was simply tired. Wordlessly, fathomlessly tired. It felt as though there would be no end to this, and try as he might, Naruto couldn't think of a single thing he could do to make things right again.

He had dragged Sasuke back to the village, but he had lost him all the same. And there was so little Naruto wouldn't give to have the stupid Genin team smiling and scowling in his bedside photograph back again.

"It _would_ have been after breakfast if you got up at a normal time," Sasuke shot back.

He watched Naruto's changing expressions - indicating that the other was as deep in thought as he ever got - and felt that uncomfortable feeling again. "You said you wanted to talk, so talk. I have a feeling I'm not going to get out of here until you have."

Sasuke wasn't giving Naruto the opportunity to vent at him. He really, really wasn't. Because he didn't care about Naruto, and even if he was willing to admit to some small, tiny, miniscule portion of himself that cared just slightly about the blond, even that barely-present part of him certainly didn't care about Naruto's _feelings, _of all things. If there _were_ feelings somewhere in that empty head.

So, he wasn't giving Naruto a chance to yell at him, if that was what he needed, if that would make things feel normal again. He just wanted to get the hell out of Naruto's apartment already. It smelled funny.

"You're not going to stop even if we talk, are you?" Naruto asked, voice rather subdued still. He hadn't quite managed to eat any of his ramen yet. Mostly he was staring at the contents, prodding absently at a partially dehydrated pea.

"It's really just... my own wishful thinking, isn't it? By now we're just having the same conversations over and over again. And... My questions are still all the same. I still don't understand anything. I--"

Naruto's eyes suddenly widened at the words that he had almost blurted out without thinking.

_I'm not someone who can save you, am I?_

He had been about to... give up. On everything he had spent all this time working for, on everything he _believed _in and wanted and needed and--

He had been a breath away from giving up on Sasuke.

Swallowing, Naruto frowned and took a very large bite of ramen, slurping the noodles down.

Sasuke stared at Naruto, feeling as if he was missing a very important part of the conversation. "Look at me!" he said sharply, startled as the words left his mouth. But he couldn't stand it. Naruto had never been unable to _look_ at him. It wasn't in his nature.

It made Sasuke feel... wrong. And he couldn't feel wrong. He needed his convictions. He needed Naruto yelling at him, pushing him, providing him with competition, if he couldn't go elsewhere for training.

Naruto both held him back and pushed him forward, and as long as Konoha was still his only option, Sasuke _needed _him.

Startled into compliance, Naruto immediately met Sasuke's gaze with wide eyes, not quite comprehending what had the other boy so unsettled.

"What...?" he asked, voice a little bit scratchy as he gripped his chopsticks tightly in one hand, trying desperately to find his center again. Sasuke couldn't... _see_ him like this. Sasuke already thought so little of him.

"I..." Sasuke trailed off, trying to find a way to phrase his thoughts that wouldn't result in a complete and total loss of dignity. But his impatience got the better of him and it all came out in a jumbled mess. "This isn't how it works. You drag me back and you yell at me, maybe we fight, and then it's over until next time. You're messing it up. Goddammit, Naruto, do you have to mess _everything _up?"

"_I_ mess everything up?" Naruto demanded, finding himself making an _effort_ to get angry. Because he didn't want Sasuke to see him as emotional as he felt. He didn't want Sasuke to realize that he had almost given up, because Sasuke had lost enough people and Naruto had always promised himself to never become one of them.

"Am _I_ the one stupidly making myself pass out at least twice a week? Just you wait, Sasuke! One of these mornings I'm going to go out there, strip you naked, and dress you in Sakura's uniform!" Naruto went on to threaten, puffing his chest out a little as he crossed his arms. "And then depending on how my day is going, I _might_ consider carrying you back before the whole village takes pictures for posterity."

Sasuke snorted, going back to his food. "Yeah, you'd like that, wouldn't you?" he mumbled, allowing the words to pass his lips only because things were starting to feel normal again, and he knew they would bother Naruto.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Naruto demanded, pounding his fist against the table, feeling a familiar and almost comfortable rush of anger at the back of his neck.

Sasuke shrugged nonchalantly, now seemingly fully involved in eating. "Mm... I don't know, what do you think it means, moron?" he asked, not bothering to look up. Baiting Naruto was his main source of entertainment, most days. There wasn't all that much he could do anymore; he had to find _some _way to pass the time.

"I think it means you're really itching to get into Sakura-chan's wardrobe, so you're trying to make sure I make good on that promise as soon as possible," Naruto snapped back, rather angrily shoveling down his own breakfast as he spoke. "What do you think, Sasuke? How about pink blouses on Tuesdays and green spandex on Thursdays? Fuzzy Eyebrows always has a spare."

Sasuke felt his own eyebrow twitch. "I'm sorry, I made the mistake of assuming you were capable of understanding what I was saying. I'll explain it more bluntly, so that your feeble brain can comprehend it. You want to get me naked so you can bend over and take it. Sorry, I don't like men."

Rather unwillingly, Naruto felt himself get quite warm, cheeks flushing pink at Sasuke's suggestion and the mental image it summoned to mind. He choked slightly on his ramen and had to push himself away from the table, coughing rather violently. By the time he could breathe again, he probably should have had some sort of comeback or proper denial of Sasuke's accusation.

But he didn't.

"I-- I--" he sputtered, eyes open so wide it seemed they might fall clear out of their sockets. "M-me neither, dammit, Sasuke! Who wants your stupid pale ass, anyway? You might be pretty girly, but girls like Sakura-chan are much more my type!"

"She _would_ be your type," Sasuke said, setting down his chopsticks. "Let me know if she ever grows breasts." He silently apologized to Sakura as he stood, feeling rather victorious, all things considered.

"...I'm telling her you said that," Naruto grumbled, rubbing his cheek self-consciously with the back of his hand. He was intent on getting the last word, even if it resulted in Sasuke's bloody murder at Sakura's hands.

Sasuke felt a brief, but substantial chill run through his body before he shrugged it off. "Whatever," he muttered, glad that his legs were apparently able to hold him again as he made his way to the door.

"You're coming to the meeting, right?" Naruto reminded Sasuke as he watched him go, knowing there was really no stopping him at this point. Like Sasuke had said, this was how things went. After they argued for a while, it was over until next time. Naruto wished they had more substantial things than that to say to one another, but...

It was how it was.

"Kakashi-sensei wants us to meet outside his place at four-ish."

Sasuke stopped in the doorway, trying to subtly stretch to work out a bit of the stiffness lingering in his limbs after passing out. If Naruto noticed, he'd tell Sakura, and then Sasuke would get another lecture about just what this could be doing to his body.

"I'll be there." He had nothing better to do, besides training and occasionally sending Naruto outside Konoha for his unconscious body. No missions outside the village, which meant he was stuck with kid stuff while Naruto, Sakura, and Kakashi-sensei were able to venture out on the more difficult assignments. It was infuriating, really, but one side effect was that he was secretly eager to do pretty much anything that could manage to occupy his time.

"See you there, then," Naruto sighed with a little shrug, stubbornly hiding his inward pleasure to hear that Sasuke planned on being there. The team just didn't feel the same without him, as stupid and insufferable as he was.

A few hours later, Sasuke made his way toward Kakashi's apartment, ignoring the occasional looks he received from villagers. He'd found out fairly quickly years ago, once being released from the hospital after Naruto had forcibly dragged him back, that his abandonment of the village and intended destination upon said abandonment had managed to get out and become public knowledge.

Luckily, he couldn't care less. He was used to the attention, and anything that even somewhat diminished his fan club was a good thing, in his opinion. He walked casually as he neared Kakashi's apartment - or as casually as a slightly paranoid, uptight avenger wearing a chakra-draining bracelet ever walked.

"Tomato-boy!" an energetic, rather buoyant voice called out from behind him just as he turned a corner, followed shortly by the quick, shuffling footsteps of someone wearing pants that were too long trying to catch up with him. It was the strange hermit who lived on the outskirts of town, who sometimes rescued Sasuke when Naruto was busy or out on a mission. He also hung around Kakashi an awful lot, and the word on the street was that he was more than a little touched in the head. For some reason, he had taken an unfortunate liking to Sasuke.

Today, he was as much of a sight to see as usual. He was dressed in Kakashi's clothing, because he claimed that it was the most comfortable, but he was rather thinner than Kakashi so the pants were constantly slipping down. His shoulder-length black hair was surprisingly only slightly tangled, though beyond that the style of it was a complete loss. It looked as though the last time he'd gotten his hair trimmed, it had been done by errant kunai thrown by enemy nin, so jagged and haphazard was the cut.

And he seemed to have begged one of Naruto's spare jackets from him, so he was _also_ garbed in bright orange and seemed to be reveling in it. To top it all off, he wore the positively _worst_ pair of sunglasses known to mankind.

"Tomato-boy, how are you?" the hermit asked Sasuke once he had caught up. He grinned for a moment, then blinked, then frowned, then smiled again as he tilted his head to one side and regarded Sasuke again.

"Oh! Tomato-boy! I didn't see you there! How are you today?"

Sasuke took a slow, calming breath. Despite the man's apparent similarity to Naruto - Sasuke was firmly of the belief that he was actually Naruto's older self, crazy, senile, and with dyed hair, come back from the future to torment him because really, one Naruto ruining his life just _wasn't _enough - Sasuke's method of dealing with the hermit was very different from his method of dealing with Naruto. It could best be summarized as 'ignore it and maybe it will go away.' Or, more accurately, 'ignore it and maybe something else will catch its attention, leading it to wander off a cliff.'

In other words, it most closely resembled his method of dealing with girls.

"Fine," Sasuke murmured, never pausing his steps.

"Wonderful, wonderful! Oh! I think I remembered something!" The hermit sounded extremely proud of himself as he patted himself down. "I brought you a snack!" Tugging on Sasuke's sleeve, the he gave Sasuke the most _pitiful_ look until the other stopped long enough for the hermit to deposit today's presents into his hands.

Today's presents appeared to be an assortment of wrapped candies, a few only slightly bruised cherry tomatoes, a cookie carefully folded inside a napkin, and a handful of ketchup packets.

"Kakashi tells me you're a growing boy, and growing boys need lots of snacks! Or--" A troubled frown crossed the hermit's expression briefly as he went into deep thought.

"...I _think_ so, anyway. My mommy might have told me once. Maybe. Did she...?"

Sasuke sighed, staring down at the items now occupying his hands. He'd throw away the ketchup and cookie later. "...Thank you," he mumbled reluctantly.

He didn't know what was with this guy. Why he was so fixated on Sasuke, why he felt the need to give him 'presents' on a regular basis. And Kakashi-sensei remained tight-lipped about the entire thing, seemingly as amused by this as he was by all of Sasuke's various misfortunes.

"I have to go now," Sasuke explained, backing away slowly. "I have a meeting with Kakashi-sensei and my team."

"Kakashi's going to be late!" the hermit sang with a very bright, beaming grin. "I know so, I know so! I left him just now so he's going to be late because I made him help me look for the ketchup and now he has to get ready. Can we talk a little longer, Tomato-boy? I, um... I forgot where I was going so I don't have anywhere to be."

Now _Kakashi_ was actually getting in on the present collection? Just perfect.

"If I'm late, he'll actually be there on time." It was one definite thing Sasuke had learned about Kakashi, over the years. "And how many times do I have to tell you? It's _Sasuke, _not Tomato-boy."

"Names like that aren't important," the hermit attested with a loose shrug as he happily inspected his jacket sleeves, glancing between them and Sasuke's always-unhappy expression. It was true, now that the hermit got to thinking about it. Maybe. His memory came and went quicker than the wind in tornado season, but he was _pretty_ sure that he didn't remember a single time he'd ever seen Sasuke happy.

Except.

Well.

That had been a long time ago.

"You'll always be Tomato-boy to me! It's cute and it suits you," the hermit went on to insist, now peering into his sleeves. "What about me, Tomato-boy? Do you have a name for me? Kakashi says I'm like a stray dog but I prefer cats, so maybe I'm a stray cat. But strays ought to have names from their people, and you're one of my people, so!"

Sasuke glanced in the direction he was _supposed _to be going, obviously eager to leave. "Kakashi-sensei won't tell me your name," he said, lifting a hand to rub wearily at his temples. "Mostly I call you 'that crazy guy who follows me around.' Do you want that to be your name?" He supposed it suited the man about as much as 'Tomato-boy' suited Sasuke, which was more than he would like.

"That's kind of long, isn't it?" the hermit asked, sounding concerned. "Won't your mouth get tired from saying it? But if that's what you like, it's what you like! I don't mind it at all. Maybe I can be 'that crazy guy' for short. That one's pretty popular with the other villagers too."

A small, amused smile began to twist Sasuke's lips, and the realization left him feeling a bit dirty. "...I should go. Meeting with Kakashi-sensei," he said again, assuming the hermit had already forgotten. "Thank you for the, ah, things."

"Oh, right! And hey, I found my post-it!" Proudly, the hermit produced the lime green post-it note that had been hiding in the cuff of his sleeve somehow and squinted at the scrawled writing. "Buy... flowers... Oh! I haven't done that yet today, have I..." The hermit sounded as though he was talking primarily to himself at this point, rubbing the back of his neck. "Now where did I put my money...? Hm..."

He abruptly remembered that Sasuke was still there and looked up again, positively aglow that Sasuke had managed a smile today. The hermit would have to go home and mark his calendar! He patted his pockets until he found a pen and added that memo to his post-it under 'buy flowers'.

_Mark calendar. Sasuke smiled today!_

"Okay! Bye now! Say hi to everybody for me!"

"Right. Crazy hermit says 'hi.' Got it." Sasuke quickly made his escape, wondering what it said about him when he was actually eager to find himself in Naruto and Sakura's company.


	2. Believing in

Next to Nothing

_Chapter Two:_ Believing in...

As it turned out, Sasuke had been completely right about what would happen if he arrived late. By the time he rounded the corner to Kakashi's apartment building, the rest of the team was already there waiting for him. Sakura was sitting on the stairs as Kakashi leaned against the wall with the latest installment of his favorite series in hand while Naruto bounced up and down in place in the street. Judging from Naruto's excited expression and Sakura's rather carefree demeanor, it appeared that Naruto had forgotten all about telling her about Sasuke's choice words regarding her development (or lack thereof).

"Oh, Sasuke-kun! There you are!" Sakura called out when she spotted him, all smiles as she raised her arm and waved.

"It's about damn _time_ you showed up!" Naruto grumbled directly after, turning to face him as well.

Sasuke gave Sakura a small nod and ignored Naruto completely. He stopped to lean against the wall in a position unconsciously similar to Kakashi's, crossing his arms over his chest.

"I was accosted by your friend again," he informed the taller man, as if the entire thing was somehow Kakashi's fault. Sasuke had a feeling that somehow, it probably was. It was just the sort of thing that his sensei would find terribly amusing. Sasuke had his suspicions that Kakashi secretly put the hermit up to it. Why else would he follow Sasuke around that way? Kakashi was the only common denominator.

"I suspected as much," Kakashi answered rather nonchalantly, looking rather as though he was smiling beneath that mask of his. He turned the page in his novel, then glanced over the top of the book at Sasuke. "Did you enjoy the ketchup? I talked him out of the lollipops shaped like hearts and flowers, but he insisted on the ketchup packets."

"Lollipops shaped like hearts and flowers...?" Naruto echoed, frowning as though he was on the verge of getting a very funny joke.

Sasuke nearly groaned, but decided his best course of action would be to just play on their earlier argument, since it had so easily gotten to Naruto.

"Jealous, dumbass?" He returned his gaze to Kakashi.

"Stop encouraging him. And if you must help him collect presents, pass along the message that I prefer cash."

If he was going to be harassed on a regular basis, he might as well get something out of it.

Naruto actually said nothing in response to Sasuke's jab, interpreting the other's words all wrong. It was a little bit true, actually. Naruto wished someone would randomly give _him_ food. Then he wouldn't be eating instant ramen all the time.

"That's so impersonal, Sasuke. You're going to hurt his feelings," Kakashi chided lightly, glancing briefly at his current page number as he spoke. Then he snapped the book shut and tucked it back into its usual spot, figuring it was about time to start the meeting. "Anyway, you're here now so we should get down to business. I already briefed the team, Sasuke, so all that's really left is to fill you in."

Sasuke pushed off of the wall, indicating that he was listening. He desperately hoped that their mission was at least something semi-interesting. He'd been training pretty much non-stop, and even that got boring after a while. If he didn't find something to do soon, he was going to have to make another trip out of the village, and he'd already sent Naruto out after him twice this week. Naruto tended to get cranky when it happened more than twice a week. Not that Sasuke cared about Naruto's mood, but the blond was a lot more likely to leave him lying out there for a few hours when he was cranky.

"Sasuke," Kakashi sighed, looking about as reluctant to continue as he ever looked, the knit of his brow visible even beneath his slanted headband. He glanced wearily at Naruto, then at Sakura, before his gaze settled on Sasuke again. "The three of us have been assigned to a diplomatic mission in Mizu no Kuni and it might take a while. Normally you know we try to avoid this sort of thing, but this time we were specifically requested by the Mizukage himself, and... Well, it's difficult to refuse something like _that_."

Sasuke felt his heart plummet and crossed his arms again, nodding, not bothering to glance in Naruto or Sakura's direction - he hated the pitying looks they always gave him. "Whatever. I have things to do, anyway." He should have known.

He knew, deep down, that it wasn't fair of him to get angry with them. Naruto and Sakura were trying to advance as ninja, and they had to turn down many of the more important missions that they were offered just to avoid hurting his feelings. But it wasn't _fair. _He was one of the most competent ninja in this worthless village, and he couldn't even step outside its walls. At least not without passing out and getting dragged back by his rival.

Speaking of which. Screw Naruto's temper, it felt like about time to see just how much further he could manage to get once stepping outside those walls. He gave his team an absent wave, not exactly in the mood to be civil, and turned on his heel to walk away.

"Sasuke, where are you going?" Naruto demanded, taking a step after him. "We're not done _talking_ to you yet!" When Sasuke didn't stop, Naruto sighed rather angrily and put on a smile long enough to excuse himself from Sakura and Kakashi, promising that he would get this sorted and meet them in time for their final briefing.

By the time he left them, it was too late to catch up to Sasuke so Naruto had to settle for tracking him down, but it wasn't as difficult a task as one might imagine. It couldn't have been more than ten minutes before Naruto spotted the familiar, slouched figure sitting at the end of the pier that both of them had frequented as children.

"You really are too predictable, Sasuke," Naruto sighed as he approached him.

Sasuke scowled, tossing a rock into the water, feeling a bit better at the satisfying splash it made. "So are you," he retorted. "I knew you'd come after me. Idiot."

Naruto always came after him.

"Yeah, well sorry I give a shit," Naruto snapped, dragging a hand through his own hair in frustration. "You can't just run off like that when we're trying to help you, you know. You've always been kind of an ass, but at least you used to have some _manners_. Kakashi-sensei wanted to make sure you had someone to look out for you while we're gone, but we wanted to talk it over with you so that we could ask someone you approved of. Because all our friends are sick of you tearing their heads off. The only one masochistic enough to still agree to it is _Lee_, you know that?"

"I don't need anyone to take care of me," Sasuke growled, one hand tightening on the wooden edge of the pier. What made it worse was that even he knew that he was lying. And that was what bothered him.

He _did _need someone to take care of him. That was how low he'd sunk. What kind of avenger was he, really? Trapped in Konoha by a _bracelet_, only able to take on Genin missions, depending on others to take care of him every time he tried to do something to better his situation. He wasn't an avenger anymore. He was Naruto's fucking _pet, _leashed and collared in this god-forsaken village.

"Yeah, and Kakashi-sensei only reads wholesome things," Naruto supplied rather bitingly, crossing his arms over his chest. "Are you really telling me you're going to be good and not try to escape while we're gone? Because it'd be a damn shame if we came back and you'd been eaten by a boar because you passed out on the outside and no one brought you back."

Sasuke shook his head, so furious he thought he might toss Naruto off the pier if he didn't get some control over himself. He imagined that Naruto would make an even more satisfying splash than the rock had. "I don't need you getting someone to _babysit _me!" he growled. "What I do is my business, not yours!" Even if he did get eaten by a boar.

...He probably wouldn't. Surely the border patrol would pick him up long before then.

"If you watched someone sit there and slam his head against a wall twice a week for three years straight, _you'd_ think he needed babysitting too!" Naruto clenched his fists in frustration, wishing somehow that sense could be beaten into Sasuke. It worked for every other damn person on the face of the planet, but apparently Sasuke was simply too thick-skulled to get it.

"Yeah, and whose fault is it that I'm beating my head against the wall?!" Sasuke demanded angrily. "Who dragged me back here against my will?! Whose fault is it that I can't go on missions, that I'm stuck here with this stupid bracelet doing Genin shit for the rest of my life?!"

And that's what it all came back to. It wasn't fair, and he knew it, he was forgetting about the part where _he'd _left the village in the first place. But in Sasuke's mind, it was always Naruto. Naruto had dragged him back, Naruto had talked to the elders and Tsunade, this all had to be Naruto's fault. It couldn't possibly be Sasuke's.

"Well I'm sorry I didn't want to see you wind up dead!" Naruto snapped back, stamping his foot against the pier hard enough to make it shake. "You'll just have to _forgive me_ for assuming that's not what _you_ wanted either! You have _no_ right to sit there and call me a moron when you're the biggest idiot I know! You're not the only damn person who lost his family, you know! You're just the only one too stubborn and stupid to see that it's not the end of the world and that there are people who are trying to make things better for you!"

By the end of it, Naruto was shouting to the point where his throat hurt, a very familiar frustration burning at the corners of his eyes. Stupid Sasuke. Always getting him so _damned_ emotional over what? But Naruto knew he wasn't the kind of person who could just stop caring about someone once he'd started. It just wasn't in him to do it. There weren't a whole lot of things in the world Naruto wouldn't trade to see a real smile out of Sasuke. He'd seen it once before, maybe. The memories were getting on so cloudy by now that he had no way of being sure, but.

Surely.

Surely, once, he had seen Sasuke really smile.

Sasuke got sharply to his feet, wanting to be level with Naruto. "It's not the end of the world?!" he yelled, shoving Naruto's chest. He wanted to fight. He wanted Naruto to hit him, he wanted to feel that sharp sting of a fist hitting his face, and he wanted to hit Naruto back. "Was your family murdered, Naruto? Did the one person you loved most in the world kill your entire family and make you relive it over and over? Because, wow, I didn't realize we had so fucking much in common!"

Shaking, Naruto clenched his hand into a fist and swung it at Sasuke's face with all of his might. Sasuke's words had made him so frustrated and furious and hurt that he barely knew what to do with himself. He could hardly keep his voice steady when he spoke.

"No, but the closest thing I've ever had to a family tried to kill _me_ and I relive it over and over without anyone's damn help. And even now he keeps pushing and pushing me away and trying to get himself _killed_ and I know he's never going to come around but I still break my back trying because-- because--" Naruto groped blindly for words, tongue spurred by his anger. Why couldn't Sasuke just _understand_ already? That his tragedy wasn't the only one in the world. It sucked, Naruto knew that. It sucked worse than everything that had happened to Naruto because Sasuke remembered all of the horrible things that had happened where Naruto had simply been born into it. But Sasuke didn't understand that he didn't _have_ to hurt anymore, if he could only just let it go. Naruto knew he wasn't the brightest crayon in the box, but he could see how Sasuke was playing into Itachi's hands. Why couldn't Sasuke see it?

"--I don't even fucking know anymore! Why _do_ I give a shit about you anyway? You're just a selfish prick who'll never see past his own damned nose!"

Sasuke had stumbled back a few steps when Naruto had hit him. It had been exactly what he'd wanted, and he'd been just about to hit back and get the brawl that he'd just known would somehow make everything okay again, but instead he froze, staring at Naruto with wide, dark eyes.

Somehow, everything Naruto had said just hit him like a ton of bricks. It settled deep down into his soul and confirmed all of the things he told himself late at night. What kind of person tries to kill his best friend? What kind of person did the things Sasuke had, over and over, hurt everyone around him for his own selfish purposes?

But it wasn't his fault. He hadn't asked them to care... they _shouldn't _care. He'd tried to cut his ties with them before, and they hadn't let him.

Sasuke cleared his face of all expression, looking at Naruto calmly even as a bruise began forming on one pale cheekbone. "Then don't give a shit," he said, before turning and heading back toward the shore.

Naruto stood still for a moment, trying to catch his breath as he watched Sasuke turn his back on him yet again. It was like playing connect-the-dots. If Naruto drew lines between all the memories he had of Sasuke walking away from him, it'd probably draw the picture of his whole damn life. Almost every major point in his life seemed to be punctuated with the sight of Sasuke leaving him behind.

"Sasuke--" he began, holding his hands up a little helplessly, as though he wasn't quite sure what to do with them. "Dammit, Sasuke! Stop running away from me! Just because Itachi betrayed you doesn't mean that everyone is going to! I'm not leaving you, dammit, I-- Feelings aren't something you can just turn off, and even if I could, I--"

The next words wouldn't quite come. They hurt a little too much to think about, and Naruto thought they just might kill him to say.

Sasuke stopped just before stepping off of the pier. He closed his eyes, hating the way his chest was tight, the way part of him wanted, more than anything, for Naruto to finish that sentence. He didn't understand this part of himself, he didn't _understand _why it was always Naruto who could make him so angry and so sad and so... everything. He just knew he didn't need another Itachi in his life.

"Don't," he said quietly. "Just don't, Naruto. I never asked for this. Just stop." That said, he opened his eyes again, took a slow breath, and continued walking.

And with that, Naruto's words died quietly on his lips as he drew in a sharp breath, willing the aching pain in his chest to subside.

_Don't. Just stop._

Stop.

Sasuke wanted him to stop. It... was hardly a new development in their relationship, but somehow, this time, those words hit Naruto right in the gut. Saving someone who didn't want to be saved was an uphill battle, and Naruto could feel himself losing. But he couldn't afford to lose. If he lost, he... He would lose everything. Sasuke had dug himself so deep into Naruto's heart that tearing him back out again would surely kill them both. With Sasuke, he was home. He needed all of them. Sasuke and Sakura and Kakashi and Iruka and all of his other friends in the village. But he needed Sasuke in a different way than everyone else. Sasuke was his hope, his chance, his proof that he was everything that he thought he was.

When he was with Sasuke, he was so sure that he almost knew what having a family felt like. Loving someone and hating him all at the same time. Bickering about nothing and everything and always being at odds but still always there for each other. When he was with Sasuke, that strange void of not knowing what having a family felt like and not knowing where in the world he was supposed to belong vanished. Naruto needed to have that. He could feel it almost, that this was his one chance. If he could save Sasuke, the world would be somehow okay. No matter how hard things became in the future, Naruto would know there was nothing they couldn't overcome.

But if he couldn't. If he gave up or Sasuke got away or Sasuke really, truly came to hate him, then...

Nothing would ever be okay again.

Naruto wished he had the words to explain this all to Sasuke, his feelings, his beliefs, his dreams, his fears. Everything. Maybe then Sasuke would understand. But try as he might, Naruto was only able to stand there, feeling stupid and defeated, watching Sasuke leave him yet again.

"...would it..." Naruto began, quietly, mostly speaking to himself as he dug his nails into his palms.

"...would it have been better if you'd succeeded, back then...?"

Sasuke was gone before he could hear Naruto's words. He went to the last place that even Naruto would probably follow him, and the last place he usually wanted to be: the Uchiha cemetery.

He was able to relax, even if just slightly, in the silence. No one came here; the young people of Konoha even thought it was haunted. Sasuke simply didn't often like to stare at the rows upon rows of faceless tombstones.

Today, however, they were somehow comforting. This was his past, present, and future. This was his focus, his motivation. Not Naruto. _This. _His cousins, his aunts and uncles, his father, his mother-- the dirty hermit standing in front of his mother's grave?

The hermit in question didn't seem to notice him at all. He had a modest bouquet of white lilies and pink carnations in his arms, and he appeared to be talking to himself as he stood there, eyes fixated on the name etched onto Mikoto's tombstone.

Oh, and there appeared to be a pile of weeds and brambles and broken twigs heaped on Fugaku's grave next to Mikoto's.

"Hi, pretty lady," he was mumbling to himself, petting the top of the tombstone with one hand. "I'm... still sorry about how everything turned out. I think I said that yesterday already, maybe...? But I thought I'd say it again. Because. I'm really, _really_ sorry. Maybe if I hadn't been such a loser back then, you'd've married me, huh?" The hermit laughed at this, as though it was the funniest idea in the world.

"Our kids probably would've been prettier, too. I can't be sure, but I think your boys get it from you, y'know? Yeah... Not 'sactly a looker myself, but at least I don't look like a horse kicked me in the face. Anyway... Thanks for everything, again. Sorry I paid you back by watching you die. I'm... I really am a coward, aren't I? I've been hiding all these years and... and..."

The hermit's hands started shaking, so he set the flowers on top of the tombstone and held his hands tightly to his chest, taking in deep breaths.

"...I hope the view from Heaven's nice."

It was a few moments before Sasuke could even speak. He'd caught most of the man's ramblings, and it took some of it a while to register. What he was saying... he'd known Sasuke's mother? He'd known about the massacre, maybe even been there? Or was it all just more evidence of his insanity?

"Who the hell _are_ you?!" he demanded sharply, not bothering to announce himself, his voice cutting through the relative silence of the cemetery.

The hermit visibly stiffened at the sudden voice, whirling around with surprising agility to put Sasuke in his field of vision.

"S-Sasuke--" he stammered, tear-streaked face registering surprise that was easy to read even with the ridiculous sunglasses obscuring half his face. Then, swallowing, the hermit began to curse quietly to himself, dragging his hand through his hair roughly enough to tear strands out. He clenched and unclenched his other hand, glancing around helplessly, muttering about how he had messed up this time.

"Am I supposed to be here right now?" he was asking himself, fumbling to check his post-it. Was it the wrong time of day? This was when he usually came, wasn't it...? Wasn't it? Had he gotten mixed up again? This wasn't the sort of mix up he was allowed to make--

"Oh no, oh no. No, no, no, no no," he whimpered when he looked up at Sasuke again and saw that he was still there. "I messed up again. Bad, bad, bad, I messed up bad this time. Kakashi can't fix this for me because I messed up too bad and I was _never_ supposed to-- Shouldn't have _talked_ to her, that was stupid, but she looked so _lonely_, oh-- Oh, oh-- Itachi's going to kill me now, he is--"

Sasuke's eyes narrowed at Itachi's name, and he disregarded all of the hermit's other ramblings in favor of striding up to the man and curling his fingers roughly in the hem of Naruto's borrowed jacket, shaking him. "You know Itachi?! Are you in contact with Itachi?!"

It didn't make any sense. The man was still acting crazy. He wasn't reacting like some sort of spy for a psychopath. He was acting like... an unsettled man who had made a mistake. But then how had he known those things, and why had he spoken of Itachi that way?

Sasuke didn't want to hurt him. He didn't know why the thought of it bothered him so much, but it did. Still, if this was about Itachi, he would hurt him if he had to in order to get information. If he'd nearly killed his best friend, he could certainly rough up an admittedly friendly hermit.

"N-no," the hermit managed to choke out at last, trembling even in Sasuke's grip as he shook his head almost violently at the thought. "But he promised he would if I ever told you. I'm not _supposed_ to. Because... bad...? Bad things will happen? Maybe-- I-- I can't remember--"

Sasuke took a slow breath, releasing the man. This wasn't the way to get anything out of him and, frankly, it unsettled him anyway. "Then tell me what you do remember," he ordered quietly, before reluctantly adding, "...please. It's very important to me. You like giving me presents, right? This would be like a really good present."

"I... I shouldn't--" the hermit mumbled, though he seemed to be calming now that Sasuke was no longer so close to him. He hugged himself and stared down at the ground for a moment before slowly looking back up at Sasuke again.

"...do you think you would smile again if you knew? Why is it you don't smile anymore, Sasuke? It's... It's because awful things happened, right...? But maybe-- Would... Would the truth make you able to smile again? You..." A smile touched the hermit's lips just then, slightly lopsided but very genuine and distantly fond. The hermit seemed to have forgotten that he was supposed to be upset.

"...you had the cutest smile, back then. I wanted to give you candy all the time, but I wasn't allowed in. Sometimes your mom would talk to me over the fence, though. She was such a nice lady."

Sasuke nodded, dark eyes widening as he listened. "Yes. Yes, I would smile again if you told me the truth, I promise. I just want to know the truth, okay?"

Inwardly, Sasuke's mind was racing. Wouldn't let him in anymore? Did that mean what it sounded like it did? Who was this man?

Swallowing, the hermit nodded once as though to strengthen his resolve to go against everything his life had been built around these last... God, had it really been seven years already? Eight? When had he gotten so old?

It was okay if Itachi came back and slit his throat in his sleep or something for this, anyway. Mikoto's sons deserved to be happy, somehow. She had such a pretty smile, and they had both inherited it. The fact that they both had that beautiful, angelic sort of smile in them and couldn't find a single reason in their lives now to use it, well, that...

That was a tragedy.

Much more so than the life of a crazy hermit who wouldn't remember to feed himself if he wasn't reminded.

With that thought, the hermit quietly pushed his hair out of his eyes and behind his ears, then very slowly slipped off his sunglasses and let them fall to the ground. There were jagged scars on precisely one half of his face that crawled over his right eye, permanently sealing it shut. He blinked his good eye at Sasuke twice, squinting a little at the light as it adjusted, and then he found himself smiling a little bit apologetically as he focused his chakra.

A moment later, his eye flashed red, pupils separating into the familiar pattern of Sharingan.

Sasuke took a step back, shaking his head. This... was it someone else like Kakashi, who'd obtained a Sharingan eye through other means? Or was it really possible that one of his kinsmen had survived? It couldn't be... he'd been there that night, Itachi had killed everyone...

"...How?" Sasuke whispered.

"I, um..." The hermit sighed heavily, rubbing the back of his neck as though embarrassed. "I... forget things. You've probably noticed. I had a rough mission when I was a Genin, and... Almost died, I guess. I don't remember a lot of it. Ever since then, I started... forgetting stuff. I come off sounding pretty crazy sometimes, and I guess... Maybe I am, even a little. But we're all a little bit gone up there, aren't we? Anyway, the clan put up with me for a couple years, then banished me. It was too shameful to have me around, when I couldn't even fight for them. It was best to... pretend I didn't exist." At that, the hermit began to glance around the graveyard, craning his neck for something.

"I'm right over there, actually. That corner." He pointed to a particularly overgrown plot, smiling something that was half a grimace. "They pretended I'd died and made me go live somewhere else. Made me give up my name. I guess I should thank them for making arrangements for me instead of killing me in my sleep, but, ah..." Shrugging sheepishly, the hermit held out his hand a little awkwardly at Sasuke.

"Uchiha Obito. But you can stick to calling me 'crazy guy' if you like that better."

Sasuke shook his head and reached out, seeming in a daze as he took the man's hand and shook it weakly. Another living Uchiha... well, sort of. He didn't know what to think. So many years, thinking he was all alone in the world, but really there had been someone else like him so close all along. This explained why the hermit followed him around, anyway.

"Nice to meet you," he managed, his voice coming out a bit hoarse. His gaze moved to the right side of Obito's face. "...Your eye," he murmured, several things falling into place at once. "You're friends with Kakashi-sensei. You gave him your eye?" He was still too much in shock to think about all the rest, now. To think about what this meant to him, to his revenge, to everything. About Obito's still-possible connection to Itachi, about how much he had been involved in the massacre. Right now, he just had to take one thing at a time.

"Ah... Yeah, I did, didn't I...?" Obito laughed a little nervously at that, shrugging his shoulders slightly. "Kind of a weird present, huh? But... It was in the hospital after. He'd gotten himself all cut up for me, so... I wasn't going to be able to use it anymore. I could barely remember the hand seals for a simple genjutsu at that point so... I asked Rin to--" Obito's voice faltered very briefly as he abruptly remembered that Rin was gone. That was the worst part about his memory these days, really. Not the forgetting, just the suddenly remembering things he hadn't realized he'd forgotten. Like how he would never get to see Rin and Minato-sensei ever again.

"Um-- I was saying... Oh, yeah. I asked Rin to do it before anyone came. Kakashi was going to be a great ninja, I just knew it. And he is, right...? I feel a little bit less like my whole life's been a waste when I look at him."

"...He is," Sasuke agreed quietly, looking away, his eyes wandering to Obito's grave. He remembered it, now, from his infrequent visits to the cemetery. Uchiha Obito, a name he'd always dimly recognized but been unable to place. Maybe his mother had once spoken of him.

But he had to focus. It all felt like too much right now, but it didn't matter. If Obito knew anything that could lead him to Itachi... "What about the massacre? You know something about that, Obito? About Itachi?"

"...yeah. You're not going to believe me, though. It's a story that sounds crazier than I look, I promise you that," Obito sighed a little helplessly, fidgeting slightly. "I'll only tell you if you swear you'll try to believe me."

Sasuke hesitated. Could he really swear to believe something this man told him? He obviously wasn't quite right, even if his problem was just with his memory. He could be mixing things up, confusing what he knew, or just forgetting important parts and therefore distorting the facts.

It didn't matter, though. If there was more to know about the massacre, and Sasuke felt sure that there was, then he needed to hear it. He'd decide later whether or not what Obito told him was true. "I promise to try."

"Itachi wasn't crazy." Obito thought that this was the best way to begin, sighing as he settled himself down against Mikoto's grave, beseeching her quietly for the strength to get through this. "And he didn't hate you either."

_In fact, he loved you more than anything in this whole world_.

Obito knew better than to say that right away, though. Sasuke already looked overwhelmed. This sort of thing, it was best to take it all one step at a time. So, with another deep breath, Obito began to tell the complicated story of the secret civil war between the Uchiha clan and all the rest of Konoha, of Itachi's involvement, of how it led to the massacre and Itachi's innocence through it all.

"...he came to me that night. I remember it more clearly than anything else in my life. I remember that it was dark out, that I was sweeping my floor and that I was dressed in a loose shirt and pants because I was getting ready for bed. He was covered in blood, and he was crying. He was just a boy then, after all. Just a kid," Obito mumbled, both eyes shut as he leaned his head back against Mikoto's tombstone, heart aching acutely at the memory. "Told me everything. I didn't know any of it until he told me. He got serious then, managed to choke down his tears. Told me seriously that if I ever told you, he would cut my throat ear to ear. You had to stay innocent. Untouched by this. You couldn't know. But he wanted me to take care of you as I was able. Make sure no one left here tried to betray him or do anything funny to you. So I made sure you got on Kakashi's team with Minato-sensei's son. Kakashi wanted to do it anyway, so it's not like I did a whole lot but, um... That's all that I know."

Sasuke could feel his heart pounding in his chest. He didn't want to believe it, and he did, all at the same time. It couldn't be true, but it made so much _sense. _So much _more _sense than his caring but distant brother suddenly losing his mind and killing everyone for no reason. But if he _did _believe it, then practically everything he'd thought he'd known was a lie. His family, his clan, weren't the innocent victims that he thought they were, but rather misguided ninja who'd been about to start an unnecessary civil war that could have thrown all of the ninja villages into chaos.

And his brother, the martyr who had destroyed himself to save them.

He shook his head, beginning to pace in front of his mother's grave, his eyes a bit wild as he stared at nothing in particular, his mind working furiously. "But why torture me, then? If he cared so much, why make me relive it? Why tell me to hunt him down?" The question was both for himself and for Obito.

"I... I don't know," Obito mumbled, looking troubled at the question. Itachi had never explained that one to Obito either. In fact, Obito hadn't even been aware of what Itachi had done to Sasuke until years after the fact. "One... one of the conditions of letting you live, though was that you were never to know the truth--" That detail coming suddenly back to him, Obito's eye widened before he sighed and settled back against the tombstone rather comfortably, fairly resigned to what he had done.

It didn't feel like he had done the wrong thing yet.

"Whoops...?"

That made Sasuke laugh breathlessly, the sound a bit too high and loud. It startled Sasuke himself and he quickly shut his mouth. He had to take a moment to calm down; he was dangerously close to losing it. This was just too much to take in.

"He didn't want me to know," he said, thinking out loud. "Why? Because none of it's true? But then why would he bother telling it all to someone who really had no status in the village? Maybe he knew you'd tell me even if he told you not to, and that was his purpose all along?" Sasuke whirled around, changing directions. "But that doesn't make sense, because he _wants _me to confront him."

Sasuke put a hand to his forehead, squeezing his eyes shut. "It makes no sense!" But it made _perfect_ sense right up until he got to Itachi's interactions with him, and then it all fell apart. Why did Itachi do what he did with him? What possible reason could he have had to torture Sasuke, and want him to think Itachi himself was the bad guy, if it wasn't true? If he really loved Sasuke?

"No, I don't think he thought I'd tell. He was very explicit in his threats of what would happen to me if I ever did," Obito sighed, voice subdued as he cast Sasuke a tired, apologetic sort of look. "...I think he just didn't want the truth to die with him."

Sasuke sat down heavily, dazedly noticing that he'd dropped to the ground right in front of his mother's tombstone. He stared at the letters etched carefully into the stone, noting that they were a bit blurry. Was he crying?

"Thank you," he said after several minutes of silence. "Thank you for telling me." He didn't know what to make of all of it, whether it was true or not, and he just couldn't think about it anymore right now. But at least... after all this time stuck in the village, so far from his purpose, feeling useless and doing nothing... at least he had finally gotten somewhere.

"You're welcome," Obito answered politely, then smiled a little tiredly at Sasuke. "Crying is quite opposite of a smile, you know. But! I won't demand too much of you right now." Reaching into his pocket, he produced a slightly squished package of tissues and set them in Sasuke's lap.

"I'll take a rain check on that smile. But I better go home now, before I forget where it is. Um. You're always welcome, you know. To visit. We could... talk more, or something. I'll cook you a decent meal once in a while. I think she'd like that, Mikoto," Obito offered almost shyly, glancing back at the tombstone as he stood.

Sasuke nodded, not trying to stand just yet. "...Yeah," he said after a moment, tearing his gaze away from his mother's name to look up at Obito. "My team's going to be gone for a while. I won't have any missions. I'll stop by."

For a moment Obito looked almost startled as his smile broadened just a little bit and he nodded back. He hadn't expected Sasuke to take his request very seriously at all, least of all promise to come so quickly. Obito would have to write himself a memo to go grocery shopping soon.

"I'll be waiting," he promised in return. "I'm kind of a mess without Kakashi, so... It'll be great to have you around."

Sasuke gave another slight nod before returning his gaze to the tombstone. In all honesty, as strange as Obito was, he wanted to talk to him more. After all this time of getting nowhere, of constant frustration and disappointment, it felt like Obito was his progress, somehow. And, memory problems aside, maybe together they could figure out Itachi's motives where Sasuke was concerned.

It was like, for the first time, he wasn't completely alone in this.

Obito felt exactly the same way. As wonderful as Kakashi was to him these days, Obito found a little bit of home in Sasuke, in that familiar hair and face and eyes. Obito had stopped dreaming about the future a long time ago, but now...

He could almost see it, the three of them taking back a small corner of the old Uchiha compound. They would likely never bring the clan _back_, but that was something best left undone anyway. It wasn't about that. It was about finding home again.

Obito wanted to figure out Itachi's motives as much as Sasuke did, wanted deeply to know what made Itachi think he had no recourse but to allow himself to be the village's puppet and then obediently wait for death.

Even though Obito knew he was probably only that much crazier for it, by the time he made it outside the front gate of the graveyard, he had decided that Itachi had to be saved.


End file.
